Книги по живописи

Is the bride pregnant? What are clogs doing on a marriage picture? Why is just one candle burning in the chandelier? And what does the mirror in the background reveal? Rose-Marie and Rainer Hagen provide answers to these and other questions about 100 world-famous works of art. Guiding our eye to revealing details, they also shed fascinating light on fashions and lifestyles, loves and intrigues, politics and people, and transform our encounter with art into exciting adventure.
Vol. 1: From Antiquity to the Renaissance
Vol. 2: From Rembrandt to Rivera

Painting the divine

Heavenly grace and human grandeur

Influenced by his contemporaries Michelangelo and Leonardo, Raphael Santi (1483-1520) became, in his own right, one of the most important artists of the High Renaissance. Though Raphael painted many important works in his Florence period, including his famous Madonnas, it was his mature work in Rome that cemented his place in history, most notably the Stanza della Segnatura in the Vatican featuring his School of Athens and Triumph of Religion murals.

This overview traces the life’s work of this Renaissance master who achieved the height of greatness in only two decades of creation and whose influential work paved the way for the Mannerist and Baroque movements.

About the Series:
Every book in TASCHEN's Basic Art Series features:

* a detailed chronological summary of the artist's life and work, covering the cultural and historical importance of the artist
* approximately 100 color illustrations with explanatory captions
* a concise biography

Variations on reality in the 20th century

Art imitates life in the work of the realists. Through painting, photography, and sculpture, 20th-century realists invoke reality in works that capture what Freud called "the uncanny"—the inexplicable strangeness of something which seems at once real and not real.

Featured artists include:
Arman, Francis Bacon, Balthus, Max Beckmann, Robert Bechtle, Karl Blossfeldt, Isaac Israilewitch Brodsky, Cagnaccio di San Pietro, Vija Celmins, Chuck Close, Alexander Dejneka, Otto Dix, Walker Evans, Eric Fischl, Lucian Freud, Leon Golub, Duane Hanson, Edward Hopper, Frida Kahlo, Georgia O’Keeffe, Tamara Lempicka, Wolfgang Mattheuer, Giorgio Morandi, Ron Mueck, Felix Nussbaum, Gordon Parks, Philip Pearlstein, Anton Räderscheidt, Gerhard Richter, Diego Rivera, Christian Schad, Charles Sheeler, Ben Shahn, Daniel Spoerri, and Werner Tübke

About the Series:

Each book in TASCHEN's Basic Genre Series features:

• a detailed illustrated introduction plus a timeline of the most important political, cultural and social events that took place during that period
• a selection of the most important works of the epoch, each of which is presented on a 2-page spread with a full-page image and with an interpretation of the respective work, plus a portrait and brief biography of the artist
• approximately 100 colour illustrations with explanatory captions

The author:
Kerstin Stremmel studied art history and German literature in Cologne and Bonn and received her doctorate in 2000. She lives in Cologne, working as a freelance writer for, among others, the Neue Zürcher Zeitung. She currently holds a post as visiting lecturer at the Hochschule für Gestaltung und Kunst in Zurich.

Посмотреть русскоязычное издание книги Realism -  Реализм

Exploring the mysteries of the subconscious, this title deals with the grandfather of surrealism. In reaction to the 'narrow-mindedness' of his fellow artists, symbolist painter Odilon Redon (1840-1916) sought to open the door on the invisible. Art, according to the theories of the symbolist movement, should 'add to human beauty the nimbus of thought'.

In his studio, Redon would dedicate his energies, like an alchemist, to the creation of his 'black pictures', those barely tangible charcoal drawings teeming with fantasy figures. Gradually, color took hold in his works and Redon applied it with a boldness and imagination that heralded the experimental approach of modernism and surrealism. Fallen angels and deformed monsters gave way to a completely different vision that was radiant and serene: the triumph of light over darkness.

About the Series:
Every book in TASCHEN's Basic Art Series features:
* a detailed chronological summary of the artist's life and work, covering the cultural and historical importance of the artist
* approximately 100 color illustrations with explanatory captions
* a concise biography

A mirror of the artistic and intellectual developments of the 17th century

Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn (1606-1669) was one of the most complex and multi-faceted artists of the 17th century. From his initial period in Leiden to his earlier and later phases in Amsterdam, the stages of Rembrandt’s career mirror the artistic and intellectual developments of the century.

After breaking off his studies in Leiden, the young Rembrandt trained as a painter for two years and eventually established his own painting workshop. Characteristic of the Leiden period are his biblical histories, such as "The Raising of Lazarus," but the roots of Rembrandt’s portraiture, nourished by his intensive studies of physiognomy, also are to be found in these same years. Later, in Amsterdam, the perfection of Rembrandt’s likenesses initially won him the favour of numerous patrons- but the artist soon surpassed their expectations. Transcending traditional modes of presentation, Rembrandt composed his portraits, in the same manner, he had earlier constructed his scenes. The results are visible, for example, in the famous group portrait "The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp" from 1632.

In the last phase of Rembrandt’s work - when, plagued by financial problems, he had withdrawn into seclusion - it is no longer possible to distinguish between event paintings and portraits.

About the Series:
Each book in TASCHEN’s Basic Art Series features:

• a detailed chronological summary of the life and oeuvre of the artist, covering his or her cultural and historical importance
• a concise biography
• approximately 100 colour illustrations with explanatory captions

The author:
Michael Bockemühl (b. 1943) studied art history, philosophy and ecclesiastical history in Munich and Bochum. He qualified as a professor in 1984 at the Ruhr University, and lecturered in the history of the art of late antiquity, the Middle Ages and the early modern age. In 1990 he was awarded a chair in the science of art, aesthetics and art education by Witten Herdecke University. His TASCHEN monographs include Rembrandt (1991) and William Turner (1991).

Посмотреть русскоязычное издание книги Rembrandt - Рембрандт

Rembrandt: The Drawings & Etchings. The complete XXL collection

Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn (1606-1669) stands as one of the most important painters in Western art, but nowhere else do we encounter his inimitable talent more so than in his drawings and etchings. Hinged upon experimentation and expressive line work, they garnered him unparalleled recognition from his contemporaries.

Each portrait or quotidian scene is elevated by his masterful treatment of light, shadow, and hatching. There is another world to be accessed within Rembrandt’s etchings — one that dwells within the intangibilities of moody midnight contemplation and the twilit countryside, these elusive moments fixed to the page with every stroke. Meanwhile, Rembrandt’s drawings display his emotional state with a candor unseen in other works. Using pen and brush, silverpoint and charcoal as well as colored chalks and ink, he drew on various types of paper which he also sometimes dyed beforehand.

Commemorating the 350th anniversary of the artist’s death, this stunning XXL monograph is the first-ever collection gathering Rembrandt’s complete works on paper. Through the 708 drawings, brilliantly printed in color for the first time, and 314 etchings in pristine reproductions, we discover Rembrandt’s keen eye, deft hand, and boundless depth of feeling like never before; and above all, we witness that he was far more than just a painter.

The authors:

Peter Schatborn is emeritus head of the Rijksprentenkabinet at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. He has served as guest scholar at the Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, and has curated exhibitions at the Fondation Custodia, Paris and The Frick Collection, New York. He specializes in seventeenth-century Dutch drawings.

Erik Hinterding studied art history at Utrecht University and completed his PhD on Rembrandt the etcher. He has worked on publications and exhibitions for numerous institutions among them the Fondation Custodia in Paris, the Scuderie del Quirinale in Rome, the Klassik Stiftung Weimar, and the National Museum of Western Art in Tokyo. In 2013 he was one of two authors of the new seven-volume catalogue raisonné of Rembrandt’s etchings. Since 2012 he has been Curator of Prints at the Rijksmuseum, where he oversees the early modern print collection.

Selfies with Rembrandt. The complete self-portraiture in an XL collection

Few devotees of the form can approach Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn’s radical contributions to the art of the self-portrait. Challenging the conventions enshrined by his predecessors, Rembrandt transformed self-portraiture into a fully realized medium capable of communicating emotional depth rather than favorably immortalizing one’s likeness in the finest trappings of luxury.

With more than 80 works spanning paintings, etchings, and drawings, the Dutchman’s lifelong practice of self-portraiture functions as a means of concretizing that which is fleeting, be it individual moments of development set against the inexorable passage of time, or the facial contortions of emotion that are gone, without a trace, as swiftly as they arrive. Across the four decades in which they were painted, one constant is particularly striking across media and styles — Rembrandt’s dedication to presenting himself from multiple perspectives, celebrating the multiplicity of the individual and championing the unfiltered portrayal of emotional expression.

Apart from the thematic concerns present within Rembrandt’s suite of self-portraits, the works themselves are rich with technical innovation and experimentation. Glints of light bathe a shoulder while whole swathes of his face blend, obscured, into darkened backdrops. Carved through a wet patina of earth-toned paint with a rough reed pen, unruly curls seem to reflect the light cast down upon them, swirling with boisterous energy befitting the surprise so often plastered across Rembrandt’s face. There is an unmistakable humanity present across the entirety of this oeuvre, each expressive brushstroke and obfuscated feature amounting to an unflinchingly honest characterization of himself, in all his foibles, contrasting states of feeling, and stages of life.

Commemorating the 350th anniversary of the artist’s death, this comprehensive monograph renders all of Rembrandt’s self-portraits in breathtaking XL resolution. From his first experimentations at age twenty-two to his final self-portrait painted a year before his death, this stunning collection stands testament to a life committed to revolutionizing painterly practice both in content and form.

The authors:

Volker Manuth studied art history, philosophy and classical archaeology in Kiel, Bonn, and Berlin. In 1987 he completed his PhD at the Freie Universität Berlin with a thesis on the iconography of Rembrandt’s Old Testament subjects. From 1988 to 1995 he was an assistant and associate Professor at the FU Berlin, and from 1995 to 2003, he held the A. Bader Chair of Northern Renaissance and Baroque Art at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario (Canada). Since 2003, he has been Professor of Art History at Radboud University in Nijmegen, the Netherlands.

Marieke de Winkel studied art history and classical archaeology at the University of Amsterdam and history of dress at the Courtauld Institute in London. From 1993 to 2003, she was a research assistant with the Rembrandt Research Project. Her PhD thesis at the University of Amsterdam focused on dress in the works of Rembrandt.

Art as we know it today could not exist had not the revolutionary work of the Renaissance artists paved the way. Widely considered the most important and influential movement in the history of fine arts, literature, architecture, and science, the Renaissance marked the emergence of Western civilization from the Middle Ages into the modern era. Beginning in the 14th century in Italy, the movement spread throughout Europe by the late 15th century, the main centers of fine art activity being in Florence, the Low Countries, and Germany. For the first time, art became intellectual; influenced by humanism, artists experimented with secular subjects and revived classical antiquity. Advances in anatomy and geometry produced more realistic depictions in terms of space and perspective for the Italians, while new oil painting techniques made their mark in Flemish painting and woodcuts and engravings were the specialties of the Germans.

Artists featured: Albrecht Altdorfer, Fra Angelico, Giovanni Bellini, Hieronymus Bosch, Sandro Botticelli, Pieter Breughel, Agnolo Bronzino, Vittore Carpaccio, François Clouet, Correggio, Lucas Cranach the Elder, Albrecht Dürer, El Greco, School of Fontainebleau, Piero della Francesca, Domenico Ghirlandaio, Giorgione, Matthias Grünewald, Maerten van Heemskerck, Hans Holbein the Younger, Fra Filippo Lippi, Lorenzo Lotto, Andrea Mantegna, Masaccio, Antonello da Messina, Michelangelo, Parmigianino, Pontormo, Raphael, Luca Signorelli, Tintoretto, Titian, Paolo Uccello, Veronese, Leonardo da Vinci

About the Series:
Each book in TASCHEN's Basic Genre Series features:

* a detailed introduction with approximately 35 photographs, plus a timeline of the most important events (political, cultural, scientific, etc.) that took place during the time period
* a selection of the most important works of the epoch; each is presented on a 2-page spread with a full-page image and, on the facing page, a description/interpretation of the work and brief biography of the artist as well as additional information such as a reference work, portrait of the artist, and/or citations

Art as we know it today would not exist without the Renaissance. Widely considered the most influential phenomenon in European art, architecture, literature, and science, the movement revolutionized the Western conception of reality and heralded the emergence of modernity out of the Middle Ages.

The Renaissance first gained momentum in Italy, at the end of the 14th century, spreading across Europe over the course of the next centuries, with dynamic epicenters in Florence, the Low Countries, and Germany. The movement found its intellectual basis in humanism, derived from classical Greek philosophy. Across art, science, literature, and politics, proponents of the Renaissance avowed that man was the “measure of all things” and determined to replace scholastic medieval confines with a revival of antiquity.

Under the influence of humanism, artists advanced anatomy and geometry to reach new feats of figurative accuracy and revolutionize renderings of perspective to reflect the human experience of place in space. In Flemish painting, artists such as Bruegel brought new techniques and an everyday sensibility to landscapes and still lifes while in Germany, Dürer and Cranach pioneered an unprecedented drama and psychology in woodcut and engraving.

From Florence to Nuremberg, Venice to Bruges, this essential introduction in TASCHEN’s Basic Art series provide a dependable foundation to the transformative reach and sweep of the Renaissance era. Through the movement’s famed luminaries and lesser-known proponents, its social and political circumstances, and its diversions and developments over time and geography, we take in an extraordinary phenomenon, transformative centuries of change that proffered individual genius, regional variety, and a wholesale reconfiguration of seeing and representing the world.

Featured artists include: Fra Angelico, Giovanni Bellini, Hieronymus Bosch, Sandro Botticelli, Pieter Brueghel, Lucas Cranach the Elder, Albrecht Dürer, El Greco, Matthias Grünewald, Hans Holbein the Younger, Fra Filippo Lippi, Masaccio, Michelangelo, Pontormo, Raphael, Tintoretto, Titian, Paolo Uccello, Veronese, and Leonardo da Vinci.

About the series:

- Each book in TASCHEN's Basic Genre series features:
- approximately 100 colour illustrations with explanatory captions
- a detailed illustrated introduction plus a timeline of the most important political, cultural, and social events that took place during that period
- a selection of the most important works of the epoch, each presented on a 2-page spread with a full-page image and accompanying interpretation, as well as a portrait and brief biography of the artist

It seems that ever since ancient times, the basis for the great success of portraiture as a genre has been that entirely human aspiration to leave a tangible sign of one's life on earth, the desire to immortalise an image of oneself in an attempt to defeat the inevitable passage of time.

This fascinating and complex subject acquired status as an art form during the 15th century as the concept of Humanism became more diffuse and greater importance was given to the dignity of a person and his capacity to be in control of his own destiny.

The selection of portraits by great European artists contained in this book begins with those of an official nature in which the subject is shown in profile — a deliberate reminder of the classic world — and continues with those offering a realistic image of the subject and an extremely detailed landscape. It ends with portraits from the late Renaissance when it was a psychological characterisation of the subject that prevailed.

La belle vie

Impressionism’s most joyful paintings

Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919) is universally acclaimed and celebrated: museums pride themselves on his paintings, crowds flock to his retrospectives. His work shows art at its most light-hearted, sensual and luminous. Renoir never wanted anything ugly in his paintings, nor any dramatic action. “I like pictures which make me want to wander through them when it’s a landscape,” he said, “or pass my hand over breast or back if it’s a woman.” Renoir’s entire oeuvre is dominated by the depiction of women - again and again he painted “these faunesses with their pouting lips” (Mallarmé) and invented a new image of feminine beauty and sensuality. A prolific painter - he made several thousand works in his lifetime - he is perhaps the most beloved of the Impressionists.

About the Series:
Every book in TASCHEN's Basic Art Series features:

* a detailed chronological summary of the artist's life and work, covering the cultural and historical importance of the artist
* approximately 100 color illustrations with explanatory captions
* a concise biography

La belle vie

Impressionism's most joyful paintings

Pierre Auguste Renoir (1841-1919) is now universally acclaimed: museums pride themselves on his paintings, crowds flock to his retrospectives. His work shows art at its most light-hearted, sensual and luminous. Renoir never wanted anything ugly in his paintings, nor any dramatic action. "I like pictures which make me want to wander through them when it’s a landscape," he said, "or pass my hand over breast or back if it’s a woman."

Renoir’s entire oeuvre is dominated by the depiction of women. Again and again he painted "these faunesses with their pouting lips" (Mallarmé) and invented a new image of feminity.

About the Series:
Each book in TASCHEN’s Basic Art Series features:

• a detailed chronological summary of the life and oeuvre of the artist, covering his or her cultural and historical importance
• a concise biography
• approximately 100 colour illustrations with explanatory captions

The author:
Peter H. Feist studied art history, history and archaeology in Halle, where he was assistant lecturer from 1952-1958, receiving his doctorate in 1958. From 1958-1981 he worked at the Humboldt University, Berlin, from 1982-1990 he was the director of the Institute for Aesthetics and Art Studies of the GDR Academy of Sciences in East Berlin. Feist has published numerous books on the history and theory of art, including TASCHEN's Pierre-Auguste Renoir and, as co-author, Impressionism. He lives and works in Berlin.

Посмотреть русскоязычное издание книги Renoir - Ренуар

Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841–1919) is so closely associated with Impressionist painting that the surprising diversity of his early work is frequently forgotten. His most important model during these early years was the artist’s mistress, Lise Tréhot, with whom he had a relationship between 1865 and 1872. After posing for a large group of prominent early works, including Woman in a Garden and En été (both 1868), Lise turned her back on the Bohemian lifestyle in favor of a bourgeois marriage. The paintings created between 1864 and the end of the following decade show the broad spectrum of Renoir’s art and the development of his artistic vocabulary, including the Impressionist phase. This is the first extensive examination of the painter’s early oeuvre and the strong influence of his close friendships with other artists, such as Éd0uard Manet, Claude Monet, Frédéric Bazille, and Alfred Sisley.

La Vie en Rose. The most comprehensive retrospective of Renoir’s work

Often misunderstood, Pierre-Auguste Renoir remains one of history’s most-loved painters — undoubtedly because his work exudes such warmth, tenderness, and good cheer. Gathering brilliant reproductions and sketches, as well as photos and a complete chronology illustrating his life and work, this is the essential work of reference on Renoir.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s (1841–1919) timelessly charming paintings still reflect our ideals of happiness, love, and beauty. Derived from our large-format volume, the most comprehensive retrospective of his work published to date, this compact edition examines the personal history and motivation behind the legend. Though he began by painting landscapes in the Impressionist style, Renoir found his true affinity in portraits, after which he abandoned the Impressionists altogether. Though often misunderstood, Renoir remains one of history’s most well-loved painters — undoubtedly because his works exude such warmth, tenderness, and good spirit.

In an incisive text tracing the artist’s career and stylistic evolution, Gilles Néret shows how Renoir reinvented the painted female form, with his everyday goddesses and their plump forms, rounded hips and breasts. Renoir’s later phase, marked by his return to the simple pleasure of the female nude in his baigneuses series, was his most innovative and stylistically influential, and would inspire such masters as Matisse and Picasso.

With a complete chronology, bibliography, photos, sketches, and brilliant reproductions, this is the essential work of reference on this enduring master artist.

The author:

Gilles Néret (1933–2005) was an art historian, journalist, writer, and museum correspondent. He organized several art retrospectives in Japan and founded the SEIBU Museum and the Wildenstein Gallery in Tokyo. He directed art reviews such as L'Œil and Connaissance des Arts and received the Élie Faure Prize in 1981 for his publications. His TASCHEN titles include Salvador Dalí: The Paintings, Matisse, and Erotica Universalis.

About the series:

Bibliotheca Universalis — Compact cultural companions celebrating the eclectic TASCHEN universe at an unbeatable, democratic price!

Since we started our work as cultural archaeologists in 1980, TASCHEN has become synonymous with accessible, open-minded publishing. Bibliotheca Universalis brings together more than 100 of our all-time favourite titles in a neat new format so you can curate your own affordable library of art, anthropology, and aphrodisia.

Bookworm’s delight — never bore, always excite!